Google's Spending $1 Billion on an Old NASA Hangar, Nobody Knows Why

Planetary Ventures LLC, a Google shell company, just signed a very expensive lease on a very large building and airfield in Silicon Valley. The lease in question will cost the search giant $1.16 billion over the term of 60 years. The building and airfield in question is the Moffett Field, where Google's founders have been landing their private jets for years.

Of course, we knew this was coming. All the way back in February, NASA announced the deal with Google slash Planetary Ventures. Now it's a done deal, and NASA revealed the specifics in a press release. In addition to that very large price tag, the agency said that it would save about $6.3 million annually in maintenance costs.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden's explanation of why that's so great is priceless: "As NASA expands its presence in space, we are making strides to reduce our footprint here on Earth. We want to invest taxpayer resources in scientific discovery, technology development and space exploration — not in maintaining infrastructure we no longer need."

You heard that right. NASA is busy building shit in space. Who knows what an internet company is going to do with an airfield. Buy more private jets, maybe? [NASA]